A soul is a terrible thing to waste

Many years ago there appeared on television a public service announcement stressing the importance of education. This public service advertisement was for the United Negro College Fund and it concluded with the exhortation: “a mind is a terrible thing to waste.”® I would like to suggest that a soul is also a terrible thing to waste if I can borrow from the registered trademark phrase of the UNCF.

I was planning on writing a different posting last night, but then I read Mark’s most recent posting on the March 10^th statement issued by Cardinals McCarrick and Keeler and Bishop DiMarzio on the Responsibilities of Catholics in Public Life. I also reread some earlier contributions to MOJ on related issues involving conscience, the writings of theologians who disagree with Church teachings, and the works of some of the very theologians who would support the views taken by the fifty-five members of Congress who issued the February 28^th Statement of Principles on which I and others have previously commented.

Then I read an essay by Elizabeth Weil that appears in today’s New York Times Magazine entitled “A Wrongful Birth?” The question mark at the end of the title speaks volumes. Ms. Weil talks about a difficult case of a New York couple who had a child, A.J. is his name, whose life is affected by several serious genetic disorders. HERE But I came to realize that little A.J. is not the only person whose composition is flawed. We are all flawed in some ways—be it physical, intellectual, or spiritual. A.J. has a soul. So do his parents. And, so do we.

Regardless of who we are, from little A.J. to some person who has planned and executed terrible infractions of civilized conduct to all of us somewhere in between, we have an immortal soul whose objective is salvation and union with God. For those who are officials in public life, for those who elect or appoint these officials, and for those who fit into none of these categories, all need to be reminded of this universal truth about human nature—a truth that we who call ourselves Catholic hold.

With this reality in our consciousness, there is greater promise that no soul will go to waste by some other person’s deed. The three bishops who issued the March 10^th statement seem to have this point in mind as they exercise their teaching authority. We, who are teachers in another context but who are also disciples, share in the responsibility to remind others as well as ourselves that no soul should go to waste. Jesus came not to save some but all.   RJA sj